Breakdown
by Madame Isabel de Alegheiri
Summary: my interpretation of the interrogation scene in Anti-Thesis


Greetings, fans and addicts. I guess that you all want a disclaimer....and I don't feel like being all that creative with one tonight. Yeah, that's right. Ya'll know how it goes: I don't own them except for the mini-Goren in my head. That's right, a mini-Goren....actually, he's not that mini, but my brain is, so therefore he must shrink. Ignore that...and just read the fic. Oh yeah, I'm also not getting paid for this-so be nice and review me so that this is all worthwhile. Otherwise I will go and hide.  
  
Warning: Spoilers ahead  
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She had gotten to him. Right when he least expected it, in the middle of an interrogation. That was always when he was in control-he knew it and the suspect knew it. Except for now. As a suspect, she had just done something that no suspect had ever been able to accomplish, no matter how pretty-smart-funny-talented-cunning-vicious-evil they were, he was able to stay in control. He relished that control, it was what made him able to do his job as well as he did it. Once he had a person it that little room-so reminiscent of the cold, fully tiled rooms in the basement of the Ministry of Love*-he was able to get what he wanted from them just in the way he wanted it, because that was what he did. He dominated the room-it really wasn't big at all, and he had an advantage of size. He would hulk over who ever was unlucky enough to find themselves in there with him, fix them with an unease-inducing penetrating gaze, and then take them in metal circles until they broke. It almost never failed.  
  
This time it didn't work. Maybe he should have seen it coming. Elizabeth Hitches, or whatever the hell her name was, was a great deal smarter than the average criminal, or even the average human being. She had spent her life honing her craft until it glittered like a finely sharpened stiletto. This woman had come prepared, not with the aid of a lawyer like so many of the individuals who had been in the seat where she was sitting. No, she hadn't come with a lawyer, or even the threat of a lawsuit. What she had was much subtler, but infinitely more potent than anything he had ever encountered. She came with information. His birth date. His social security number. His full name. Where his mother was institutionalized. His entire life was on that piece of paper. It was at that moment he realized that he was dealing with a very capable mind; he could sense the depth, the darkness, and the reptilian, but well cloaked evil. He knew evil, he dealt with it every day of his life, but this was different, because this woman could get inside his head as well as he could get into hers. It was a new feeling and it didn't sit well, but he could deal with it. Getting a confession was his aim right now, and his focus didn't waver-until she said the words-"How old were you when you realized that you Mummy wasn't like all the other Mummies?" He reacted. It was more than a sore spot that she had hit-the question shook him to his core.  
  
He slammed his fist onto the table, causing it to jar abruptly, and yelled, "No!", letting her know that she had crossed the line. He checked his temper almost immediately, but the flash of anger had been overwhelming in its intensity, and knew that the police/suspect barrier between them had just collapsed. All his carefully molded control mechanisms lay in a pile of dust and rubble at his feet. They now stood as equals-and in an interrogation situation that was never a good or comfortable position in which to be. He had no leverage now, nothing to entice her to talk, because he was no longer above it all. He had become a human on par with her, someone with hopes, needs, desires, and fears. Especially fears. To mention his mother dredged up the greatest dread, nay terror of his life. His mother was schizophrenic-very, very schizophrenic, so much so that she had to be put away. He knew, perhaps better than anyone else, what the disease could do to a person, and he knew that it was hereditary. He could plummet into the abyss of mental breakdown at any time, and it scared him. Becoming what his mother was would mean that all he had worked to build, his career, his life, would cease to exist the instant he heard the same voices that had brought her down. He would loose all control, the carefully crafted control that made him who he was. He wasn't a control freak, this was a different kind of control than that which he displayed during interrogation, it was of the sort that he exerted over himself. Insanity would make all of that go away. He wouldn't be able to work, he wouldn't be able to profile. The things for which he lived would no longer be his to do with as he pleased. His existence would become a round of medications, and they would control him.   
  
To suddenly open up the tragedy that was his mother's time on this earth was an almost physical blow. It was abrupt, it was cold, it was calculated, and it sent a wave of horror through his frame. In that moment, the questioning of Elizabeth Hitches ceased to be. It could never be again, because she knew too much about him for him to have an advantage any longer. That was the beauty of the routine suspect interview-the advantage of information, knowledge. He had lost that advantage the minute she pulled out the piece of paper. The game, cat and mouse, was finished before he even got half of what he wanted out of her. She posed the question to him again, and he answered, very much subdued. "I was seven." It was almost a whisper. She had burrowed under his skin, had worked and worn away at him, because she was that pretty-smart-funny-talented-cunning-vicious-evil, and had done something he hadn't foreseen. She had gotten to him.   
  
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*The Ministry of Love, for those who don't know, is from 1984 


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